Christmas Carroll: Young CBs will play more with vet ruled out

Christmas Carroll: Young CBs will play more with vet ruled out

Nolan Carroll was the only free agent that the Cowboys signed to a multi-year deal this offseason. The former-Eagle is best known in Dallas as “the guy Dez Bryant scored on a lot”. This made him an easy target in training camp, where seemingly every poor rep he had made its way to Twitter.

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Despite the social media outcry, the Cowboys have stuck by Carroll, as he’s started the first two games of the season at left corner. That won’t be the case in Week Three, as Jerry Jones revealed that Carroll will miss Monday Night Football against Arizona in Glendale.

Jerry Jones said on @1053thefan CB Nolan Carroll (concussion) won't play Monday. He is at The Star today, not practicing. Was home Thursday.

There are several moving pieces still in play for the Cowboys as they prepare their secondary for Monday’s game. Chidobe Awuzie has yet to practice this week with a lingering hamstring injury. It’s possible the Cowboys consider giving him more time off so that he’s able to really heal these nagging soft-tissue problems. That likely slides Bené Benwikere onto the active roster. and starts the clock on the Cowboys’ 2019 6th round pick.

Per Todd Archer, Benwikere “needs to be on the Cowboys’ 46-man gameday roster four times in order for the Cincinnati Bengals to receive Dallas’ sixth-round pick in 2019”.

If Awuzie misses this game, Benwikere is the only corner standing 6-foot on the roster. Scandrick has proven over his career that he can play anywhere on the field, and Anthony Brown has done much of the same. With these two vets and rookie Jourdan Lewis all displaying effectiveness out of the slot, it will be interesting to see how the available players are deployed Monday night.

Here’s the snap-counts from Sunday’s game in Denver:

One final note to keep in mind regarding the CB depth chart: Xavier Woods spent a lot of time at corner after the Cowboys were decimated mid-way through the Denver game Sunday.

I talk about this on the podcast, but I charted where Xavier Woods' snaps from Week 2.